Confusion is a word we have invented for an order which is not yet understood.

Henry Miller

This is one of those moments, rare and raw, when it all makes sense. When I feel my feet on the ground. When my eyes see what’s before me and what’s well beyond.

I am at Starbucks. At a small table at the window. I stare out at the people passing by. At the cars starting and stopping. At the dogs scampering and sniffing. There is a bank across the street. Chase. A word I love. A word I live.

I’ve just been writing a chapter. A chapter about a man with a past. A man who can’t stop thinking about one day when his world changed. In the last hour, this man came to life. Even though he’s invisible, present only in pages I’ve scribbled, pages I won’t show anyone yet, I saw him today. He was real to me. Walking through the sidewalks of his life, moving on, but ever stuck.

Chasing something.

Aren’t we all?

I sit here, a stranger to so many, sometimes to myself, and things seem suddenly plain. I see myself as I saw this man. I am a mother. I am a writer. I am a wife. I am a person. I am an observer. A dreamer. A doubter. A living and breathing mosaic of utter confusion and utter clarity.

And here. I marvel at something. How life is both. Completely senseless and full of sense. How I suffer through shaky moments when I don’t know a thing and then, suddenly, I am here, in this sweet spot, in this sweet day, and I know everything worth knowing.

And here. I marvel at something. How I can be chasing and chasing, grasping away, cursing the crippling complexity and then, bam, it’s right there, right here, in front of me.

It.

In the confusion that wraps my head and my heart and my world, there is a humble order I do not yet understand. A pattern so subtle and so slippery, it can only be glimpsed and grasped in fierce and passing flashes. But is there, this order, this crisp clarity.

It is here.

____________________________________

Do you believe that life is a patchwork of chaos and order, of confusion and clarity? Have you experienced unexpected moments of crisp clarity? Are you sometimes a stranger to yourself? Do you think that we are all chasing something?

On Tuesday I had the distinct privilege of accompanying Toddler and her Preschool class on a Leaf Hunt. It was a beautiful fall morning and we walked to Central Park. Once there, the kids divided into two groups and got down to business.

The teachers gave each child a wonderful brown paper bag with pictures glued on the front. Toddler, far more savvy about leaf breeds than I’ve ever been, educated me on the difference between elm leaves, maple leaves, and oak leaves. We found several of each. After much searching, we also found a maple seed. Sadly, we were unable to locate a beech nut and a pine cone. Next time. But we did have fun kneeling down next to a vast tree and collaborating on a bark rubbing with a brown crayon.

The morning was fun. Far more than fun. The best part had little to do with the carpet of crunchy fall leaves over which we skipped. The best part was being with Toddler. In her element. With her friends and teachers. Plopped squarely in a school setting. Honestly, I was amazed at how quiet she was, how serene, almost reverent. She held my hand on the walk to the park and didn’t say much.

At the park, she did her trademark prance around and focused intently on finding the treasures for which we hunted. I noticed how she kept floating her purple coat behind her like some kind of superhero. At one point, I asked her to stand next to me and I snapped a quick picture of our shadows draped against that blanket of leaves. Shadows that reminded me then and remind me now that we were there. On that little plot of earth together. Learning and loving and having fun.

Another wonderful treat? Seeing a group of kids, so young but growing, lined up on a park bench. Feet dangling, futures bright.

I can’t stop thinking about the little bags they clutched. The bags with the pictures of things they should look for. What if the cosmos, a benevolent existential teacher, leaned over and gave each of us a bag like this. Small and simple. With tiny images of what we are meant to find in the hunt that is life. What would the images represent? Love? Happiness? Success? Acceptance? Health? If only, right?

Fall has always been my very favorite season. And maybe this has to do with the leaves. How they dance. How they fall. How they land. How they change. How they wait there patiently on the floors of our lives, in all their humble color and camouflage, for little hands, for big hearts, for seasons to shift.

I realize as I write this that love, whatever it is, is a lot like leaves. It changes with time, its texture evolving, its colors coming and going, its beauty a constant.

______________________________________________________

If we were given that brown paper bag from the cosmos, what would we be hunting for? Have you ever witnessed your child immersed in a school setting? What is your favorite season? Do you think love is at all like leaves?

Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sunday was Baby’s second birthday party. We planned it for late afternoon so as not to interfere with naps of friends. We left home a bit early and walked there. Baby had a skip to her step. Toddler was a happy camper, along for the ride.

The party was big and boisterous. Thirty-odd kids ranging in age from four months to thirteen years. The majority were somewhere between one and four. There were songs and crafts and temporary tattoos. There was a lot of running and trampoline-jumping and, in the end, ice cream cake.

To be honest, the chaos quotient was high. In many moments, I found myself overwhelmed by the mayhem around me, praying that no one would get hurt. My conversations with fellow parents were predictably fractured; there were kids to chase. But throughout it all, I did my best to focus on one little girl. A creature in navy plaid with a tiny ponytail and consummate smile.

Not once did she get overwhelmed. Her smile stayed the whole time. She ran around singing and twirling, laughing and loving, saying “My birthday!” This amazed me really, her utter lack of self-consciousness, her confidence, her freedom, her frolic. It wasn’t an act. It wasn’t a game.

She was just being herself.

I watched her then and I think about her now, that ballast of exquisite energy and unmarred joy, and I am at once proud and envious. Proud that she is happy, so happy, and aware that I have played some small role in this. Envious that she is able to do this, to dance so freely, to smile so widely, to live so fully. That she is able to make the most of her little self.

And so. On this Wednesday in October, I take a lesson from my little one. To embrace that childish spirit that still lingers deep within me. To make the most of who I am now. Today. To worry a bit less and live a bit more.

To bounce and smile and celebrate in my own way through this party we call life.

________________________________________________________________

Do you ever learn lessons from the children in your life? Do you remember a time when you were less self-conscious, less worried about everything? Do you agree that, in life, we should focus on making the most of ourselves because that is all we have of us? Is this perhaps easier said than done?

It is truly amazing. Every time I question why I am here in this odd land, this exquisite ether, an answer comes. This happened to me just yesterday. The truth is that I am having a hard time figuring out what I want and what I need these days. My instinct is telling me to spend less time tapping keys and concocting chapters and to focus more on family. My gut is telling me to cozy up to my growing girls, to pause and enjoy this final half of my final pregnancy. But my mind is mottled with the chatter of my fictional characters, the new kids on my literary block. At day and at night, they whisper for my attention. And then there is this blog, this haunt of mine that has in so many ways become like another child. Needy. Lovely. Exhausting.

But this blog? It is not a child. It is a thing. Just a thing.

So, why? Why do I keep coming here and scattering confetti of self and story and struggle? Why do I feel so compelled to put myself out there, in here, to broadcast who I was and who I am and who I am becoming?

Because. Self matters. Stories mean something. Struggle unites us.

Yesterday, I clicked on a link shared by my good friend Lindsey on Twitter. Lindsey has raved about fellow writer and blogger Katrina Kenison and yesterday, I made my way to Katrina’s blog and read what she wrote about losing her dear friend this past weekend:

Death and life, one inextricable from the other.  What I know for sure now is that a heart can accommodate both, a home can accommodate both, a family can accommodate both… We may not know what to expect from death, or whether we are truly up to the task we’ve taken on when we promise to stay near.  And then, having made clear our intention to be present come what may, we find that even in our most challenging transitions, we do know what to do.  Our hearts tell us how to make love visible. Our hands know, without being taught, how to soothe a brow, change a sick bed, tend a body.  Dying is hard physical work, protracted and laborious in one so young and otherwise healthy.  And, despite the most attentive ministrations, life’s final stages are not always beautiful.  To be human, it seems, is to suffer and to pray for an end to suffering. And then, in life’s final moments, there is peace, and grace, and even, for one brief instant, a glimpse of the great mystery beyond this earthly realm.

I read this and nodded because it made perfect, palpable, profound sense to me. I have been there. By the bed. Saying an impossible goodbye. It was Katrina’s friend. It was my Dad. But, really, so much was the same. There are universals here. Wrenching universals. And I am not yet ready to go there, to write about the details of my experience, my loss. But I am ready to read words that make me recognize and make me feel and make me remember.

Words that make me realize something so important: I am not alone. In this dance of life and death, we never are.

This realization, timely as ever, is why. Why I come here. Why I want to. Why I need to.

This blog? This place? This world? These words? These neighbors in this invisible land? These things are not just things. They are so much more.

Thank you, Katrina, for your words. For sharing the realness of your rawness. I look forward to reading more of your words. And thank you, Lindsey, for pointing the way.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Do you blog and read blogs in part to connect with others in this dance of life and death? Do Katrina’s words speak to you and make you nod? Are you part of the club? Do you struggle with questions of what you want and what you need?

Have you ever thought about who you’d be if you weren’t who you are?

Have you ever thought about what you’d be if it weren’t what you are?

Have you ever thought about where you’d be if you weren’t where you are?

Have you ever thought about when you’d be if you weren’t when you are?

Have you ever thought about why you are who you are, what you are, where you are, when you are?

Have you ever thought about how you got to be here and now and you?

______________________________________________________________________

Do you ever think about these things or am I the only one? Who are you? What are you? Where are you? When are you? Why are you you? How did you get to you?